We show that the recent experimental realization of spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atomic gases can be used to study different types of spin spiral order and resulting multiferroic effects. Spin-orbit coupling in optical lattices can give rise to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) spin interaction which is essential for spin spiral order. By taking into account spin-orbit coupling and an external Zeeman field, we derive an effective spin model in the Mott insulator regime at half filling and demonstrate that the DM interaction in optical lattices can be made extremely strong with realistic experimental parameters. The rich finite temperature phase diagrams of the effective spin models for fermions and bosons are obtained via classical Monte Carlo simulations.
Recent ultracold atomic gas experiments implementing synthetic spin-orbit coupling allow access to flatbands that emphasize interactions. We model spin-orbit coupled fermions in a one-dimensional flatband optical lattice. We introduce an effective Luttinger-liquid theory to show that interactions generate collective excitations with emergent kinetics and fractionalized charge, analogous to properties found in the two-dimensional fractional quantum Hall regime. Observation of these excitations would provide an important platform for exploring exotic quantum states derived solely from interactions.
We study the dynamical behaviour of ultracold fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice under the presence of an effective magnetic flux, induced by spin-orbit coupled laser driving. At half filling, the resulting system can emulate a variety of iconic spin-1/2 models such as an Ising model, an XY model, a generic XXZ model with arbitrary anisotropy, or a collective one-axis twisting model. The validity of these different spin models is examined across the parameter space of flux and driving strength. In addition, there is a parameter regime where the system exhibits chiral, persistent features in the long-time dynamics. We explore these properties and discuss the role played by the systems symmetries. We also discuss experimentally-viable implementations.
The Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase, a superconducting state with non-zero total momentum Cooper pairs in a large magnetic field, was first predicted about 50 years ago, and since then became an important concept in many branches of physics. Despite intensive search in various materials, unambiguous experimental evidence for the FFLO phase is still lacking in experiments. In this paper, we show that both FF (uniform order parameter with plane-wave phase) and LO phase (spatially varying order parameter amplitude) can be observed using fermionic cold atoms in spin-orbit coupled optical lattices. The increasing spin-orbit coupling enhances the FF phase over the LO phase. The coexistence of superfluid and magnetic orders is also found in the normal BCS phase. The pairing mechanism for different phases is understood by visualizing superfluid pairing densities in different spin-orbit bands. The possibility of observing similar physics using spin-orbit coupled superconducting ultra-thin films is also discussed.
In contrast to conventional assumptions, we show that the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can be of non-relativistic origin, in particular in materials with a non-collinear magnetic configuration, where non-relativistic contributions can dominate over spin-orbit effects. The weak antiferromagnetic phase of Mn$_{3}$Sn is used to illustrate these findings. Using electronic structure theory as a conceptual platform, all relevant exchange interactions are derived for a general, non-collinear magnetic state. It is demonstrated that non-collinearity influences all three types of exchange interaction and that physically distinct mechanisms, which connect to electron- and spin-density and currents, may be used as a general way to analyze and understand magnetic interactions of the solid state.
Binary mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in deep optical lattices and subjected to equal contributions of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (SOC), are investigated in the presence of a periodic time modulation of the Zeeman field. SOC tunability is explicitly demonstrated by adopting a mean-field tight-binding model for the BEC mixture and by performing an averaging approach in the strong modulation limit. In this case, the system can be reduced to an unmodulated vector discrete nonlinear Schrodinger equation with a rescaled SOC tunning parameter $alpha$, which depends only on the ratio between amplitude and frequency of the applied Zeeman field. The dependence of the spectrum of the linear system on $alpha$ has been analytically characterized. In particular, we show that extremal curves (ground and highest excited states) of the linear spectrum are continuous piecewise functions (together with their derivatives) of $alpha$, which consist of a finite number of decreasing band lobes joined by constant lines. This structure also remains in presence of not too large nonlinearities. Most important, the interactions introduce a number of localized states in the band-gaps that undergo change of properties as they collide with band lobes. The stability of ground states in the presence of the modulating field has been demonstrated by real time evolutions of the original (un-averaged) system. Localization properties of the ground state induced by the SOC tuning, and a parameter design for possible experimental observation have also been discussed.